


Mourning Comes

by ActualWritesThings



Category: Star Wars Legends: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActualWritesThings/pseuds/ActualWritesThings
Summary: Places of refuge are hard to find and harder still to keep.





	Mourning Comes

Aralor’s not expecting the buzzer to go off, not this late at night. It’s that weird time that’s not midnight, not morning, but somewhere lost in the middle. The door buzzes again and instinct takes over, Aralor grabbing the holdout blaster secured to the underside of the table as they get up from the couch. They hold the blaster easily as they pad over to the door, pressing themselves to the wall as they open it. Some lessons from the past never truly fade.

Storm’s at the door, in his fatigues, with eyes that don’t look right at Aralor, but stare past them to something only he can see. He has a datapad clenched in a white-knuckle grip in his hand, not loosening it as Aralor carefully pulls him into their apartment, setting the blaster aside on the table near the door.

“Sto’ika, what’s wrong?”

There’s no response from Storm, just him staring down at the datapad like a man facing the firing squad.

“Hey, hey put that down,” Aralor’s voice is soft as they take the datapad out of his hands, setting it down next to the blaster. “It can wait,” they add, pressing their forehead against Storm’s, holding him close. Storm for his part, lets them, pressing himself back against Aralor.

His eyes are dark, the circles under them so deep they look more like bruises. When he drags in a breath, it’s ragged and harsh in the semi-silence, his shoulders slumped. “Just- reports on pilots-” he tries, and Aralor’s own shoulders slump, pulling Storm even closer. It’s been half a year since Toast was declared KIA, but it still feels raw.

“I know cyar’ika, I know,” they murmur back, pulling Storm towards their bedroom. Storm doesn’t resist as they travel the short distance to there, letting Aralor push him down toward the bed. His eyes are still distant, even as he sits on the bed, fingers clenching and unclenching.

He’s whispering something, and Aralor doesn’t even need to hear it to know what he’s saying. “-gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum,” they join in, reciting the names with Storm, moving to hold him close as the two of them mourn the lost.

At the end, Storm lets out a noise that could be a sob or could just be a sigh. It doesn’t matter though, because Aralor pulls him onto their lap, stroking his back and humming half-remembered lullabies. They don’t tell him that it’s ok, because it isn’t. They don’t tell him that it will be alright, because there’s no guarantee of that. They just stay there, because that’s all they can really do.

“Fierfek Ar’ika,” Storm whispers before burying his head into Aralor’s neck. He doesn’t say anything else for a while because there really isn’t anything else to say.

“We remember him,” Aralor says slowly, the words the closest to comfort they can come up with.

“We?” Storm asks, looking back up at them and Aralor’s struck by the haggard lines in his face, by how _old_ he looks.

“Always,” Aralor says the word like the oath it is and Storm slumps further into them.

“Always.”


End file.
